Opposite side of the mirror
by psquare
Summary: Dean's desperate and angry, and he wants his brother back more than anything. However, that might be even more complicated than he thought. Tag to 6.05.


**_A/N:_** Obligatory reaction fic to 6.05! This is the fastest I've written anything, I swear, but if I didn't get it down ASAP, I thought I'd go mad.

**Warnings:** SPOILERS for and up to 6.05. Loooots of angst. Present-tense. Metaphor-abuse, and apparently I write a lot of run-on sentences when I'm exhausted. But hey. Mood-setting and all that.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Supernatural_ or any of its characters.

**_For you're gazing into the opposite side of a mirror_**_**  
**_

At first, Dean tries everything he knows.

When Sam's sleeping (and damn if he hardly does that for more than a few hours now - clockwork, never sleeping more than what he requires to be functional) he trails a bit of holy water along Sam's arm. Sam shifts a little and continues to sleep, but there's no steam, no blistering skin.

He glances at the Devil's trap he'd painstakingly painted on the floor underneath Sam's bed in the afternoon when Sam was away doing... whatever the hell he does these days. A quiet _Cristo_ later, he's reciting every single exorcism he knows, and Sam doesn't respond. He sprinkles salt on him next, and that has the same effect.

At some point, he falls asleep, because one moment he's blearily rifling through one of Bobby's books for rarer exorcisms and the next a large, familiar hand is gently tapping the side of his face, a familiar voice asking him to wake up, it's morning, and they need to get going.

Familiar. That's the key-word, right?

He opens his eyes, and the first thing he sees is Sam's hand in front of his face, ready to try and wake him again. He notices a little red mark curving its way along Sam's wrist and the curve of his hand before his thumb, inflamed and maybe painful.

He looks up, and meets the eyes of a stranger.

* * *

Dean calls Bobby as often as he can.

At first he feels guilty - mostly about saddling Bobby with his suspicions and angst, and also for complaining about Sam behind his back - but Sam spends a lot of time conniving with the Campbells on _his_ phone, anyway, and Bobby's starting to get worried about Sam, too, so Dean feels at least partly justified.

Bobby says that Sam wasn't too different when he first showed up on Bobby's doorstep - maybe a little freaked-out and desperate for answers, but nothing special.

Yeah, but was he freaked-out _enough_?

You know Sam, Bobby says, it's always hard to tell how he's going to react.

But Dean needs to _know_.

He was quiet, determined, intense as hell. Dean imagines Bobby shrugging. The usual. So, yeah, if that's how he's when he's freaked-out - he was mighty freaked-out that day, Dean.

_The usual_. Sam's been a stranger for four years now, Sam's been a stranger for twenty-eight years now, and Dean's this close to breaking down.

Dean tells him how Sam sat back and allowed his brother to be turned by a vampire.

For once, Bobby has no answers at all.

* * *

Samuel Campbell starts visiting them more often.

Dean wants to chew Sam out for letting the man know every detail about their whereabouts, but it's been a long time since he's had a proper conversation with his brother, and the scariest part of the whole thing is Sam hardly notices (or pretends he doesn't, anyway). He discusses hunts with a manic intensity that continually reminds Dean of their father, cracks jokes, fills the silence with everything he's learned about various monsters over the past year, but doesn't really _talk_ to Dean. Dean often wants to just leave - leave for Lisa and Ben and some semblance of sanity, but Lisa's not answering his calls, and he's too afraid to go and visit her.

Samuel helps them out with some of their more difficult hunts, and Dean's got to admit the old man really knows his stuff. With a nimble mind, a ruthless efficiency to everything he does, a legacy and a lifetime of hunting experience to draw from, Samuel Campbell is quite the consummate hunter.

Then, one day, as Sam leaves the room for a food run, Samuel pulls Dean aside and asks him if he's noticed.

Dean wants to feign ignorance, but he nods instead.

There's something off about him, Samuel says. Something that might be dangerous to all of us.

_No, no, no_. Dean wants to run, wants to scream and shout at the heavens that they can't be going through this shit _all over again_, but before he can say anything, Samuel's nudging his shoulder and telling him Sam's coming back, and to wait and watch carefully.

The door opens, and Sam's behind it, pushing against the jamb carefully so that the door disturbs, ever-so-slightly, the line of salt Dean's drawn across the threshold. He enters, smiles at both of them, makes a joke about him and Samuel finally getting along, and tosses their burgers at them before methodically working the wrapping off his own.

Dean catches the food automatically and stares.

* * *

They've just finished a difficult hunt, and for the first time in a long time, Dean's heart is singing with a bit of the old adrenaline as he drives, bruised and battered but content, the Impala purring under his hands and his brother, whole and healthy, in shotgun, Metallica blaring out of the car speakers. They're on a deserted stretch of road, open fields stretching for miles on either side. The night sky is spread resplendent above, and Dean wants a finishing touch to complete the magic of the night.

He veers off the road and into a little path winding into the field, the Impala bobbing and jumping. Sam looks at him like Dean's crazy, but Dean just laughs and drives until they're a good distance from the road. He's out of the car in a flash, opening the trunk, and pulling out a case of old beer. He tosses one to Sam, who's finally gotten out, and pops his open. To us, Sammy, he says, grinning crazily.

Sam stares at him, unopened bottle in hand. He asks what they're doing here.

Dean wants to say _to watch the stars_ but that sounds alien and stupid coming out of his mouth because he's never had to _say _it before; because Sam always understood. Even with the Siren and the demon-blood and the Apocalypse, Sam had always _understood_.

Sam shudders and turns away, and mumbles something that sounds like _I can't_.

And that's it, Dean's done; he flings his bottle aside, beer spilling in a short-lived moonlit arc as he screams _why the hell not_.

Sam just shakes his head.

Dean's right next to Sam now, and he's raised a fist because damn if he was going to let Sam become something alien _again_, but Sam's face is pinched and in pain and for the first time in a long time, Dean's big-brother instincts start ringing.

Sammy, what's wrong, he asks.

Nothing.

Sammy, you've got to tell me.

And Sam talks. He talks about the last time he lay down and counted the stars - when he was fresh out of hell, lying on the cold, hard ground of the cemetery in Lawrence, watching the stars and wanting to get back to Dean but realising he couldn't.

It isn't much - only a few stunted lines, but Dean doesn't ask any more.

* * *

"You're not you. You're not Sam."

"No, I'm not."

"Then what the hell have you done with him?"

"I have no idea, Dean."

"And what is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"It's supposed to mean that I've never been the Sam you wanted."

"Don't give me that emo bullshit -"

"It's the truth, Dean." A smile. "I don't blame you for it."

"No. _No_. You're... not. NO. You can't be Sam. You can't be Sam and not _care_."

"I care, Dean. Probably more than you know."

* * *

The wraith's bearing down on them, bloody axe in one hand. Sam's lying to one side, knocked out, a small pool of blood forming under his head. Dean wipes his own blood off his chin and hefts his salt-loaded sawed-off.

He's got a stranger to save.

_**Finis**_


End file.
